Part 37 (1/2)

'Mexico City,' said Rau. 'We b.u.mped into each other in the concourse.'

'I was afraid no one was going to make it,' Vera said. 'As it is, we may be too late.'

'You called, we came,' said Parsifal. 'Teamwork.' His paunch and hated bifocals made the gallantry that much more charming.

Rau checked his watch. 'Thomas arrives within the hour. And the others?'

'Elsewhere,' said Vera, 'in transit, incommunicado, occupied. You've heard about Branch, I suppose.'

'Has he lost his mind?' Parsifal said. 'Running off into the subplanet like that. Alone. Of all people, you'd think he'd know what the hadals are capable of.'

'It's not them I'm worried about.'

'Please not that ”the enemy is us” business.'

'You don't know about the shoot-to-kill order then?' Vera asked. 'All the armies got it. Interpol has it.'

Parsifal squinted at her. 'What's this? Shoot Branch?'

'January's done what she can to revoke it. But there's a certain General Sandwell who has a vindictive streak. It's peculiar. January's trying to find out more about this general.'

'Thomas is furious,' Rau added. 'Branch was our eyes and ears in the military. Now we're left guessing what the armies may be up to.'

'And who may be planting the virus capsules.'

'Nasty business,' muttered Parsifal.

They met Thomas at his gate, straight from Hong Kong. The gaunt cubic angles of his face formed a ma.s.s of shadows, deepening his Abe Lincoln features. Otherwise, for a man who'd just been expelled from China, he looked remarkably refreshed. He glanced around at his greeting party. 'A cowboy hat?' he said to Rau.

'When in Rome...' Rau shrugged.

They proceeded to the exit, grouped around Vera's wheelchair, catching up on one another's news.

'Mustafah and Foley?' asked Vera. 'They're okay?'

'Tired,' said Thomas. 'We were detained in Kas.h.i.+ for several days. In Xinjiang province. Our cameras and journals were confiscated, our visas revoked. We are officially personae non gratae.'

'What in the world were you doing out there, Thomas?'

'I wanted to examine a set of Caucasian mummies and some of their writing fragments. Four millennia old. Germanic script. Tocharian, to be exact. In Asia!'

'Mummies in the Chinese outback,' Parsifal fumed. 'Cryptic writings. What will that tell us?'

'This time I have to agree with you,' said Vera. 'It does seem remote from our mission. Sometimes I wonder just what it is I'm really doing. For the past three months you've had me reviewing abstracts on mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Tell me how data on placental samples from New Guinea gets us any closer to identifying a primordial tyrant?'

'In this instance, the mummies and their Indo-European script would seem to prove that Caucasian nomads influenced Chinese civilization four thousand years ago,' Thomas said.

'And they expelled you for that?' Parsifal said. He fogged the gla.s.s with his breath and drew a crucifix. 'Or did the Commies catch you giving last rites to the mummies?'

'Something far more dangerous is my guess,' Rau said to the group. 'If I'm correct, Thomas, you were proving that Chinese civilization did not develop in isolation. The likelihood that early Europeans may have helped germinate their culture is extremely threatening to the Chinese. They're a very proud people, these children of the Middle Kingdom.'

'But again, what does that have to do with us?' asked Vera.

'Everything, perhaps,' Rau ventured. 'The notion that a great civilization might be modified or even inspired by the enemy or by a lesser race or by barbarians is highly relevant.'

'Plain English will do just fine, Rau,' Parsifal grumbled.

Thomas remained silent. He seemed to be enjoying their guesswork.

'What if human civilization didn't develop in isolation? What if we had mentors?'

'What do you have in mind, Rau?' Parsifal said. 'Martians?'

'A little more down to earth.' Rau smiled. 'Hadals.'

'Hadals!' Parsifal said. 'Our mentors?'

'What if the hadals helped create our civilization through the eons? What if they cultivated our benighted ancestors, exposed to mankind its own native intelligence?'

'Haddie was our nursemaid? Those savages?'

'Careful,' said Rau. 'You're starting to sound like the Chinese with their barbarians.'

'Is that it?' Vera asked Thomas. 'You were looking at China as a paradigm for early human civilization?'

'Something like that,' Thomas said.

'And so you traveled ten thousand miles, and went to jail, all to prove a theory?'

'A bit more, actually. I had a hunch, and it bore out. As I suspected, the Caucasian texts in Xinjiang weren't written in Tocharian script. Nor in any other human language. The reports were all wrong. Mustafah and Foley and I took one look at the mummies and knew. You see, the mummies were tattooed with hadal symbols. These Caucasian nomads were operating as agents. Or messengers. They were transporting doc.u.ments into ancient China. Doc.u.ments written in some form of hadal script. If only we could read it!'

'But again,' Parsifal said, 'so what? That was four thousand years ago. And we can't read it.'

'Four thousand years ago, someone sent these people on a mission to China,' Thomas said. 'Aren't you a little curious? Who sent them?'

A van took them to the medical center. At the entrance to the Rende Research Wing, they entered into a crush of cops and television cameras. A phalanx of university representatives were taking turns offering themselves to the wolves. Frost billowed from every mouth. Apparently the logic behind an outdoor press conference in midwinter was that it would be brief.

'Again, I urge you to use common sense,' a deanlike figure was soothing the lenses. 'There's no such thing as possession.'

A pretty news anchor, soaked from the thighs down with snowmelt, shouted from the crowd. 'Dr. Yaron, are you denying reports that the university medical center is conducting exorcism as a treatment at the present time?'

A bearded man with a white grin leaned into the microphone. 'We're waiting,' he said. 'The guy with the chicken and holy water still hasn't showed up.'

The cops at the sliding gla.s.s doors weren't about to let anyone in. Vera's medical ID was no help. Finally Parsifal flashed some old NASA credentials. 'Bud Parsifal!' one said. 'h.e.l.l, yes, come in.'

They all wanted to shake his hand. Parsifal was radiant.

's.p.a.cemen,' Vera whispered to Rau.

Inside the lab wing, the activity was equally manic, if less frenzied. Specialists were studying charts, X rays, and film images or mousing at computer models. Portable phones lay trapped on shoulders as people read data from screens or clipboards. Business suits intermixed with shoulder holsters and surgical scrubs of various colors. The hubbub reminded Vera of the aftermath of a natural disaster, an emergency room stretched beyond capacity.